Media Literacy and Bias
There is a vast amount of online information, and navigating the validity of different sources is an important aspect of media literacy. When you encounter online news, it is important to slow down and evaluate the information before citing or sharing the source. Below are some resources to help students and researchers find accurate and useful online news.
Definitions
- Media Literacy: According to the National Association for Media Literacy Education, media literacy is defined as "the ability to access, analyze, evaluate, create and act using all forms of communication. In its simplest terms, media literacy builds upon traditional literacy and offers new forms of reading and writing. Media literacy empowers people to be critical thinkers and makers, effective communicators, and active citizens."
- Bias: According to the University of Chicago, bias is a "natural inclination for or against an idea, object, group, or individual. It is often learned and is highly dependent on variables such as a person’s socioeconomic status, race, ethnicity, educational background, gender expression, gender identity and religion. Biases can be conscious or unconscious – explicit or implicit. In addition, bias can be institutionalized into policies, practices and structures."
- Lateral Reading: When you encounter information that you are not familiar with, learning more about the source by doing a few quick searches is recommended instead of doing a close reading. This method is utilized by fact-checkers to gain additional and background information on a source. The steps for lateral reading are:
- Try to determine a consensus about the source by researching it using Google and Wikipedia. You can search for any of the following key components: Publication (Usually best), Funding organization (Can often be found in the website's "about" page), Author, Content (Cut-and-paste the title of the website into Google)
- Read a minimum of 3 to 5 new sources to see what they have to say about your original source.
- If you can't find 3 to 5 sources, that is information in itself. It means your original source doesn't have an established reputation. Proceed with caution.
- Once you determine a consensus from these new sources, make a judgment call about the original source's trustworthiness.
Bias In Your News
Resources on Misinformation
- The psychology of misinformation: Why we’re vulnerable from First Draft
- How to avoid falling for misinformation, AI images on social media Article from The Washington Post
- The rise of AI fake news is creating a ‘misinformation superspreader The Washington Post article
- A voters’ guide to combating misinformation ahead of the election and beyond from PolitiFact
Fact-Checking Resources
- Snopes is probably the most trusted online fact-checking website. It has been verifying the accuracy online information since the dawn of the Internet.
- Politifact is a well-known fact-checker that specializes in determining the accuracy of politicians' statements and arguments.
- Factcheck.org is another trusted non-profit, non-partisan fact-checking organization.
- Whois can help you determine who registered a particular domain. This can be helpful when you want to find out who owns a website.
Further Reading
The Information Manifold by ISBN: 9780262043038Publication Date: 2019-11-05This book sheds light on some recent issues, including "fake news" (computers cannot tell whether a statement is true or not, because truth is a semantic notion) and "algorithmic bias" (a pragmatic, not syntactic concern). Humans, not computers, the book argues, have the ability to solve these issues.
Teaching Media Literacy by ISBN: 9780838917213Publication Date: 2019-05-20Though media literacy and information literacy are intertwined, there are important differences; and there has never been a more urgent need for an incisive examination of the crucial role librarians and other educators can play in teaching the skills necessary to access, analyze, evaluate, and create media.
Revealing Media Bias in News Articles by ISBN: 9783031176920Publication Date: 2023-02-26This open access book presents an interdisciplinary approach to reveal biases in English news articles reporting on a given political event. The approach named person-oriented framing analysis identifies the coverage's different perspectives on the event by assessing how articles portray the persons involved in the event.
Everyday Media Literacy by ISBN: 9781032160948Publication Date: 2023-10-12In this second edition, award-winning educator Sue Ellen Christian offers students an accessible and informed guide to how they can consume and create media intentionally and critically. The textbook applies media literacy principles and critical thinking to the key issues facing young adults today, from analyzing and creating media messages to verifying information and understanding online privacy.
The SIFT Method
The SIFT Method (Stop, Investigate, Find, Trace) is an efficient strategy for navigating online information to determine if a source is credible or not. Follow these four steps to analyze the credibility of a source.
S- Stop 
When you are first confronted with an online news source, stop to see if it is a reliable source before citing or sharing. Do you know the author(s)? Is the headline misleading?
I- Investigate
Do a search to find out more about the author and source that is publishing the article. What can you find out about the source?
F- Find 
Do a quick search t find what other news outlets are saying about the same information. How do other sources compare?
T- Trace 
The last step is to trace quotes, claims and media back to their original context. Sometimes information is taken out of context.
Additional Information
- Evaluating Online Information
Explores how to navigate online information including: bias, disinformation, fact-checking, lateral reading and different types of misinformation.
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Artificial intelligence (AI) is technology that mimics human intelligence. It is prevalent in search engines, education, art, social media, ChatGPT, science and medicine. While helpful, AI can be harmful in spreading misinformation and must be cited when used for academic assignments. It is important to continue asking yourself the following questions: What are the sources of information? How credible is this? How does this make me feel? What is left out that might be important to know?